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I would rather quest. Mindlessly killing mobs for no other reason than to gain XP is not a gamestyle I would want to participate in.

I'm sure developers would LOVE it if we did prefer mob grinding tho. Just think of all the costs they can save from having to provide content for it's players!

your thinking is wrong there m8.

Developers won't have to do less. they actually have to do the same amount of work. to make mob grinding intresting they have to make a huge open world to explore and within that world have big open dungeons filled with patrols where 1 wrong move would kill your party.

Well, they do that in quest oriented games also.

I just imagine a mob grinding game having a forest or enemy camp...with various wildlife or enemies...and groups of players killing anything that moves and continuing until the mobs re-spawn and then doing it over and over and over and over...

If that is not how it worls, then I admit I'm wrong. I have avoided mob grinding games so I may not know of special features that make such gamestyle fun for players.

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Originally posted by xeniar

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Arclan

In EQ, we earned xp several hours at a time by killing mobs. Much of that time involved joking around with newly met friends. Often, you came to respect their wit and skill and made a game-long friend and in some cases a lifelong friend.

In Vanguard, I earned xp by doing quests. This never involved staying in one place for more than just a few minutes. If you are busy moving or fighting, you don't have time to chat. So no new friends were made in Vanguard.

Most games require xp, and many refer to that as a 'grind.' So pick your poison.

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A fair mix of "grinding" and questing is needed. However, not themepark question. Story based questing is the way to go.

Raquelis in various gamesPlayed: EverythingPlaying: Hearthstone, League of Legends, World of Warcraft (kinda), The Secret World (kinda)Wants: The WorldAnticipating: Everquest Next, Everquest Next Landmark, Warhammer 40K

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I have yet to see a class/player that gets an ability that revolves around questing.Your abilities such as buffs,heals,dps are all centered around killing mobs.

Also follwing around yellow question marks is not even gaming in the sense of a ROLE playing world,you are just playing connect the dots,playing the game the way the developer wants you to play,not the way you want to play.That wouldn't be considered role playing by definition,so go fogure devs call their games rpg's.

It has become status quo for the simple reason it is VERY simple content to generate in the thousands.The developer can setup one simple array of commands and triggers and just plugin in tons of variances.

I don't mind quests at all,they shoudl be there and have a purpose,but they do not.

Furthermore,how can one justify your player becomeing more experienced at combat just because they delivered a styne of ale to a npc?Heck your player wouldn't be experienced at anything,other than proving yo uare not an alcoholic becuase you delivered the Styne full and not half empty.

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Before answering which I prefer, I want to understand a little better why the game is offering me XP. What exactly is the purpose of having this illusion of ever-increasing power? And if I'm simply intending to power my way through it to some content at the end, why is it there in the first place?

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I have pleasent memories from Anarchy Online! The mob grinding, at least for me, made the games more social, people would just sit near the grinding spot waiting for teams and chatting while doing it and once the grinding started players would still chat. Most games that I played in last few years players just join team and most don't bother saying "hi" or even "cya". I could say it's because of Dungeon Finders it seems to plague most game, I am recently playing PoE and most people don't even bother saying "hi" when they ask for teleport.

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Mob grinding is definitely better imo. Quests should be epic and heroic feats, not helping Farmer Joe clear his field of rats or running errands for Guardsman Bob, who needs you to deliver a message to his girlfriend.

Also, with quest grinding. The way they're currently set up you spend entierly too much time running from point A to point B and then back to point B, only to get new points to run to. When did MMO's become about running around so much and less about kick ass and meeting others who did the same? Nearly every game since DAOC came out now has 2-4 minute "rides" on mounts as a form of fast travel/money sink. Every MMO that I play has me running around so much that I never feel like I get to actually enjoy the game and taking a "ride" on a gryphon/speeder/horse is just developers automating the process and eating my gaming time.

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So true. I play Allods Online and it really sucks when you also have to grind reputation quests for gear along with the regular quests. Once you get to the level 35+ areas the reputation quests only give about 250-400 reputation experience and to get the gear you need so you don't suck in that particular area you have to earn 25k reputation.

I finally got so sick of it that I bought scrolls from the item shop that doubled the reputation you earned for each quest, but that's bordering on pay to win because if you don't use them instead of having to do 32 reputation quests you have to do 63 (this is the exact number of reputation quests you have to do for one of the areas too because I calculated it when I got the reputation scrolls). I don't have time to talk to anyone but my guild when I have to grind like that!

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Runescape had the best model imo. The quests were actually real quests that involved traveling all over the world, solving riddles, obtaining rare items and some of them even had epic story lines spaning across multiple parts. There is not a single kill X many or collect X many quests in the game. But these quests didn't give massive xp rewards, only very little combat xp and sometimes for crafting professions. Other times they would give you a special item or access to a new area, but practically all of your xp would come from grinding. Wether that would be killing trolls or chopping down trees, essentially, to progress in the game you had to grind. And it was great because there's so many options to choose from no matter what skill you were leveling and you could always meet other people.

I mean if two people are in the same place killing mobs for an half an hour they would eventually talk to each other right? So even though it was not the end goal to make friends you end up making them anyway because of the nature of the game. And that's one aspect that I really enjoyed about it.

Another thing I want to add to this is that if you were fighting powerful monsters there was chance you could die and lose your stuff. Health regenrates at an extremely slow pace so you always needed to carry food with you, but it could only be a limited amount since you would need to save inventory slots for other items such potions. I think this really added more depth to the grind and made it a lot more exciting because you needed to have some sort of strategy or escape plan.

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I'd like a game with both, where non-quest content are the primary activity for experience and general loot with a smaller chance for superior loot, but quests, while not as common, give you a sizeable chunk of experience and guaranteed superior loot, but you can only do a few each day and they should be very involved, then you spend the rest of your time exploring, crafting, PvPing, roleplaying, mini games, physical and mental puzzles and camping solo or with friends and aquaintances.

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I'd like a game that has a bit of both. The mob hunting for the main bulk of the exp that promotes, dare I say require, grouping up to explore the tougher and tightly packed areas of dungeons and camps. IMO, making the mobs harder and less soloable makes the world feel more dangerous since you can't go running off into a dungeon on your own and expect to live long for the most part.

The quests should be light on exp, offer rewarding and relevant to the quest items or skills and should be less in number / more involved than the current crop of quests. I think there can still be the collect x and return at the lower levels, but I'd like to see those phased out after the starting cities. Say a newbie leather or silk armor set made from pelts or silk strands dropped by the local wildlife you can bring to be made. Less of the kill 10 rats because I say and, viola, here's this magic sword!

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I played FFXI and though I hated the grinding gears of gameplay, I did recognize the value of being free to socialize and create greater relationships... But, I think your generalizing and assuming the reason for your lack of socializing inaccurately. The main reasons I had so much time to socialize in classic MMO gameplay was massive downtimes. Times spent LFG, times spent recovering, freedom of communication during combat, sadly, because the combat was so scripted and automated that I had freedom to shoot the breeze with players.

You could actually have a quest based exp system and still be social if the game retained those features, I imagine the real reason communication died wasn't questing for exp, but all the other optimizations that modern gameplay have added which cut out the basic lack of a game to actually participate in...

While I personally prefer an action oriented game, which unfortunately excludes freedom to chat, I can appreciate a hands off combat system which has automated gameplay simply for the sake of social opportunity, but only if it had enough programmable customization to your action and depth of tactical variation in order to at least force some decisions beyond the basic pattern mashing.

The idea of a less action packed, more programmed and macro oriented game doesn't sound thrilling in the least. But if done in the right context, like a game where you operate small trios of units individually, with gameplay immitating a more limited version of what is present in console games like FFXII and FFXIII, than players would have a definable reason to group up and battle in squads and let their personally programmed teams duke it out, vs mobs, or on quests, while having most of the freedom necessary to socialize as their little teams carve away at mobs.

It's horribly sad that this hasn't happened a long time ago, but I think misassociation of qualities in MMOs with the wrong source has lead to years of unsuccessfully attempting to immitate the appreciated qualities of classic entries.

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.That way, if they get angry, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.

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Originally posted by Verik97

Mob grinding is definitely better imo. Quests should be epic and heroic feats, not helping Farmer Joe clear his field of rats or running errands for Guardsman Bob, who needs you to deliver a message to his girlfriend.

I think lowbie quests *shouldn't* be heroic as that's one of the things that makes them silly. I think they should mostly be mundane repeatable chores that fit in with the world like collecting food or killing vermin or delivering mail but as you level yeah - they should be quests not chores and personally speaking, preferably take a long time and maybe only one at a time. If quests had companion slots with separate rewards for helping the quester for each stage of their quest then a player's long multi-stage quest might involve dozens of other players at different times over the course of it like EQ's epics.

Hard time to kill true monster , may be you will fail and lost all or go easy with 1million rat ?

We lack of choses now.

I myself don't like the idea quest xp grind , since quest's about enjoy and solve problem , not a grind tool. Can you enjoy quest when you have hurry to lvl up, they not even read what quest write , just click a hind and every thing solver . What kind of "quest" is it ?

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Originally posted by Arclan

In EQ, we earned xp several hours at a time by killing mobs. Much of that time involved joking around with newly met friends. Often, you came to respect their wit and skill and made a game-long friend and in some cases a lifelong friend.

In Vanguard, I earned xp by doing quests. This never involved staying in one place for more than just a few minutes. If you are busy moving or fighting, you don't have time to chat. So no new friends were made in Vanguard.

Most games require xp, and many refer to that as a 'grind.' So pick your poison.

There are certianly trade-offs with both, but I'd prefer mob grinds.

Mob grinds can get VERY monotinus very fast, but they also provide for the opportunity to socialize with guildies in guild chat or on Vent / Team Speak. With that said, if you like to keep to yourself and enjoy more of a solo experience, this will bore you to tears over a more interactive quest based system.

ALSO, mob farming lends itself to territory wars (if it's a PvP game). Big hairy brown bears drops a particular piece of gear or resource thats highly needed by crafters....then there is an opportunity for guilds or players to fight over those resources. This builds a whole other side of player generated content through in game rivalries, alliances, etc. (This was one of the strongest features of Lineage 2) These sort of MMO games are usually way more competitive than quest based systems that provide interuption free instances of each player's experience.